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Your Child Needs Help, But Nothing Is Working?
Your child is falling behind, homework is stressful, they resist reading, or, arguably, even worse, they are developing a negative connection to learning that might be hard to undo. You’ve tried tutoring and other things, but nothing has helped.
It’s a story we hear many times. It’s the story of a child with a deep-seated cognitive skill gap that won’t resolve on its own. Tutoring doesn’t work because it does not address the skill gap. In fact, most reading instruction doesn’t work for the same reason.
That frustration is what led us to Fast ForWord. It does work. It interacts with and remediates underlying delays, making an amazing difference in just a few months in reading, learning, attitude to learning, and best of all, confidence.
This article explains why.
About Fast ForWord
Fast ForWord software has been a leader in reading and cognitive learning software for 15+ years.
Many people still aren’t familiar with the underlying science: new neural pathways can be created, and those pathways directly improve reading and learning abilities. However, the program’s results are hard to ignore. It is available in 45+ countries and has helped 3+ million students.
Gemm Learning is a home-based provider of learning solutions. We are agnostic. That is, we have no particular loyalty to any one program. If a better learning intervention came, we would add it to our arsenal. We test new programs all the time, but the results haven’t measured up to the gains we see daily with Fast ForWord.
Fast ForWord remains our primary and most trusted intervention. Here are 12 reasons to consider the Fast ForWord app and/or software for your child.
#1: It Taps Into Brain Plasticity, An Approach You Haven’t Tried Yet
The school mandate is to teach the child who is presented to them, not to change the underlying learning wiring.
Tutoring is more of the same. It covers the same material taught at school; the difference is a tutor’s one-on-one attention. Ditto for most reading software; the difference is interactive graphics and/or less need for oversight. These two approaches—tutoring and reading software—don’t work because they mimic what already isn’t working at school.
Fast ForWord is very different. It uses neuroscience principles that tap into neuroplasticity—the brain’s ability to rewire and improve when appropriately directed—to address the cognitive skill delays that restrain your child’s learning and reading. Through systematic, intensive, and adaptive mental exercises, Fast ForWord helps the brain reorganize and improve function.
#2: Research Validated (And Some!)
Four of the world’s leading neuroscientists developed Fast ForWord, and ongoing research continues to validate it. It is the most investigated educational software of its type in the world.
Prestigious institutions, including Stanford University, Cornell University, UCSF Medical Center, and Rutgers University, have studied Fast ForWord and found it to be an effective intervention. A major 2-year study by the State of Nevada ranked Fast ForWord as the most effective reading program of the 24 tested.
More Fast ForWord published research details are here.
#3: It’s A One-Time Program, One and Done
Used regularly for as little as 12 weeks, Fast ForWord aims to deliver significant, lasting results.
By building cognitive capacity that strengthens the entire learning system, Fast ForWord can make gains that become part of the student. The central skill that Fast ForWord builds is language processing. This skill is used every day while listening and reading, so it is practiced and maintained.
#4: Gains Can Continue For Years After
Because Fast ForWord removes impediments to learning it very often leads to acceleration in thinking and reasoning skills.
This longitudinal study in Dallas, TX, showed that a large cohort of students who did Fast ForWord saw gains in the year they did the program and gains in the following 2 years. Other studies have replicated this outcome.
Anecdotal feedback from our alumnae clients supports this. Parents tell us Fast ForWord “opened the floodgates.” Many report that their children are performing at levels thought to be “far beyond reach” before starting Fast ForWord at Gemm Learning.
#5: Makes A Difference In A Hurry
Fast ForWord uses adaptive algorithms to keep students working productively in their sweet spot, where they can achieve the best gains. It also uses “shaping”—tiny, incremental steps in speed and complexity—to maintain this intensity as students progress to each new level.
This intensive instruction sets Fast ForWord apart as a learning intervention and leads to accelerated results in a short period. In most cases, students start to exhibit positive changes within 4-6 weeks.
Another reason it is efficient is that it addresses a range of cognitive skill gaps at once. It’s a popular online reading program for APD and dyslexia, and we add in other programs to address a range of comorbidities.
#6: Kids Find It Engaging, Even Fun
Fast ForWord aims to be entertaining. It uses point counters, levels, sound feedback as milestones are met, and entertaining graphics that create a gaming feel. It is also adaptive, which keeps children working at a level that is neither too easy (boring) nor too hard (frustrating).
Gemm Learning supports this engagement by sending certificates at milestones.
Use Fast ForWord on a laptop or iPad. What child doesn’t like working on an iPad?! Fast ForWord can also engage teenagers. It is a harder sell, but from the teenager’s viewpoint, it certainly beats word lists, being tutored, or visiting a center, which is often their alternative.
#7: Individualizes To The Student, Making It Robust
Fast ForWord constantly adjusts to allow users to work at their own pace. This maintains motivation and confidence levels and ensures the most efficient use of learning time by focusing on individual learning difficulties.
Fast ForWord has 50+ different exercises sorted into 10 different programs. This gives Gemm Learning a lot of room to build a customized program to meet your child’s specific reading and learning needs. The software itself then takes over, taking your child through the program at his own pace.
This ability of the program to adapt to each student creates intensity and robustness.
Intensity, because it means your child spends most of each session working at the edge of their learning abilities, constantly being challenged to push a little higher in each session.
Its robustness, in that it is able to adapt, means it can handle a wide range of students with a wide range of abilities, work rates, and attention skills. In a way, this robustness is its secret sauce. It’s what makes it effective in such a wide range of students.
#8: It Almost Always Makes A Difference
Take a look at the fMRI brain comparison here. It shows how Fast ForWord rewires learning, activating language regions of the brain in the reading process.
So far, every fMRI study conducted to track the impact of the Fast ForWord app and software shows a measurable difference in activating language processing pathways.
This makes sense. Think of it in physical terms. If a baseball player wants to throw harder, he may start lifting weights to build arm strength. If he lifts weights for 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week for 8-12 weeks (the recommended Fast ForWord protocol), he will inevitably build arm strength.
The brain is not immune to this basic biology. Brain exercises should always improve brain function.
Now, improved arm strength will not always translate into stronger throws. Sometimes mechanics or coordination issues and/or weakness in the wrist or shoulder may limit or negate the impact of a stronger arm. But most of the time, added arm strength will translate into throwing harder and further.
The same goes for the brain and learning. Despite improved cognitive skill function from Fast ForWord, difficulties in other aspects of learning—hyperactivity, for instance—may limit how quickly these gains carry over to reading, or limit them altogether.
In our experience, though, most students see a difference. This consistency of outcomes explains our 96% client satisfaction rate. 96%+ of clients say they would recommend Gemm Learning to others.
#9: Convenient Online On Any Computer Or iPad
Fast ForWord is online, accessible via any computer or iPad using the Fast ForWord app. This means it can be done from any location, any time. This is especially convenient for students using Fast ForWord on the go.
Compare this convenience to the restrictions of regularly attending a center or fitting into a tutor’s schedule.
#10: It’s Diagnostic, You’ll Learn A Lot About Your Child
Fast ForWord is like a gym circuit for the brain. You can test your physical fitness before you start working out at a gym, and you may do well. The real story, though, is told when you start using the machines. Only then will you find out your fitness and strength limits.
Fast ForWord works the same way. Your child will start by completing a Reading Progress Indicator test. But the better evaluation of your child’s strengths and weaknesses comes from working on the various program exercises, each one challenging a different cognitive/reading skill or skills.
Within 3-4 weeks, you will have a clear picture of your child’s progress, including the strength of his processing skills, attention skills, working memory, and more.
#11: It Treats The Underlying Problem, Not The Symptoms
Most reading and learning programs, including tutoring, work around the underlying cognitive delays that cause reading difficulties. They are coping tools and band-aids that make temporary improvements, not unlike pumping air into a slow-leaking tire.
Fast ForWord is different. It interacts with the deep-seated processing and working memory skills that impede most students’ progress. By exercising and strengthening these fundamental skills, Fast ForWord can make significant improvements that integrate and become part of the student. It’s a permanent change, a second chance to become an expert learner and reader.
This is why it is used as part of a clinical response to a learning diagnosis and by non-English-speaking families who want to help their child catch up in English at school.
#12: It Works: Average Gains of 2+ Years in 4-6 Months
This, of course, is the main reason to try the Fast ForWord software or the Fast ForWord app for the iPad. Resolving underlying impediments to reading and learning can make a significant difference for a wide range of students — at different reading or learning levels — working only 30 minutes a day, 4-5 days a week for just a few months.
While this average gain covers a wide range of outcomes, some see several years of gain.
Others see far fewer gains, mainly because of other learning impediments, most notably sensory integration issues. Gemm Learning is aware of the impediments not addressed by Fast ForWord that impact our outcomes. These students are not good candidates for our program, although some parents still try Fast ForWord anyway and are anxious to capture any possible gain.
While 2+ years of gain is good, parents inevitably end up being more excited by the boost to confidence and engagement in reading that comes from becoming a better learner after Fast ForWord. These gains are priceless. That’s also why we do this. We live for these success stories!
Fast ForWord Program Details & Our Service
Fast ForWord is a series of 9 programs that span cognitive and language training, reading fluency, and comprehension. The first two programs focus on key cognitive skills – processing, working memory, attention, and sequencing – vocabulary, and other pre-reading skills.
The exercises use acoustically modified speech and adaptive algorithms to find your child’s starting point, then build from there by adding speed and complexity in tiny increments. The exercises always try to push ahead but fall back on consecutive errors.
We provide Fast ForWord at home with professional oversight. The routine is 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week, for 6-8 months. Gemm Learning manages the protocols remotely. Your child just logs in and starts. More on our service here.
Request a demo, and we’ll send an overview video and an interactive link where you can try out the exercises.
